Scientific name: Rudbeckia fulgida Ait. var. fulgida
Synonym Rudbeckia truncata Small
Other synonym(s): Rudbeckia tenax C.L. Boynt. & Beadle; Rudbeckia acuminata C.L. Boynt. & Beadle ; Rudbeckia foliosa C.L. Boynt. & Beadle
Common name: Orange Coneflower
Family: Asteraceae; Compositae
Flowering period: Summer-Fall
Habitat: low wet grounds, meadows and dry soils

Type locality: Catoosa Co. along the Chickamauga Creek, near Ringgold., Georgia
Herbarium specimens: NY Specimen ID: 232864/ synotype

Comments: Rudbeckia truncata Small was described and published by John Kunkle Small (1869-1938). Small was a distinguished botanist, a curator of New York Botanical Garden, and the author of Manual of the Southeastern United States (1933). Small made a collection of Rudbeckia truncata Small in the limestone districts of Northwest Georgia, but according to Small (1898) this species was first collected by Alvan Wentworth Chapman (1809-1899), a physician and botanist from Apalachicola, Florida in Rome, Floyd County Georgia.

Description for Rudbeckia truncata Small: "Perennial, sparingly hirsute or glabrate. Stems erect, 3-8 dm tall, solitary or tufted, simple or sparingly branched above: leaves various, the basal often in separate tufts; blades narrowly elliptic, 5-10 cm long, acute or acuminate at both ends remotely and shallowly serrate, narrowed into winged petioles, those shorter than the blades; stem leaves, except the lowest, alternate; blades linear-oblong to linear, 3-10 cm long, acute or acuminate, remotely serrate, or nearly entire, sessile by truncate base: heads showy: involucres somewhat foliaceous: bracts linear-lanceolate or nearly linear, about 1 cm long: rays deep yellow, linear, 1-2 cm long, usually 10-12: disk black, depressed: disk-corollas about 3 mm long: disk-bracts linear-oblong, acute."- John K. Small (1898)

Identification help : " Rudbeckia truncata differs from Rudbeckia fulgida by more elongated basal leaves and prominently 3-nerved leaf-blades throughout. The blades of the stem leaves, although rather narrow, have a conspicuous truncate base. The heads are larger than those of its relative and the bracts of the involucres more coarsely hirsute."- John K. Small (1898)

References :
1. Small, John K. " Studies in the Botany of the Southeastern Unted States-XIV" Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. 25, No. 9. (1898) : 478-479
2. The New York Botanical Garden Vascular Plant Types Catalog: (http://www.nybg.org/bsci/hcol/vasc/ ), New York Botanical Garden, 200th Street and Kazimiroff Boulevard Bronx, NY 10458
3. USDA, NRCS. 2006. The PLANTS Database, 6 March 2006 (http://plants.usda.gov). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Last updated on November 13, 2007.

Botanical explorations in Floyd County, Georgia